[Lecture Nine] Advanced Seminars on Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 1 hour, 56 minutes
Course summary: In this course, Dr. Peikoff presented material from his then-new book, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. The manuscript had its earliest roots in Peikoff’s comprehensive 1976 lecture course on Objectivism. As he worked on the material for publication, he discovered new connections and implications of major ideas in the philosophy as well as new insights on its integrated, hierarchical structure. Peikoff used these seminars to discuss what he learned in the process and to demonstrate how it would allow students of Objectivism to gain a new understanding of the philosophy. Read more »
In this lecture: In this lecture, Dr. Peikoff explains the Objectivist understanding of the nature of reason, the role of emotions, and the important concept of the arbitrary. It also includes a discussion of contextual certainty.
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 18:09 | Why did you put this section on emotions first in the chapter? |
| 20:32 | It makes me uncomfortable that you say that men have the ability to accept contradictions without knowing it. How do you know you’re not doing it? |
| 22:50 | Is reason axiomatic? |
| 38:48 | Would you say there’s a correlation between what you described as reduction and the concept of differentiation? For example, when you take the main elements of a definition you have the genus and the differentia, the differentia is used to enumerate a specific kind of entity within a genus… |
| 40:06 | Would it be correct to say that recognizing a contradiction automatically causes a conceptual consciousness to experience pain? |
| 43:10 | Is there a legitimate use of the term “intuition”? |
| 59:54 | In three places you refer to man as “submitting to reality,” “conforming to reality,” “acquiescing in facts.” Would Ayn Rand have used any of these terms? As I understand her writings, man approaches nature with his head up and simply recognizes what is given. Nature is the condition he recognizes, not an authority that restricts him. |
| 1:04:26 | I don’t understand what you mean when you say that a parrot did not create truth or falsehood when it said “2 + 2 = 4” because isn’t it an objective fact that 2 + 2 is 4, whether the parrot knows anything or not? |
| 1:07:55 | You give Ayn Rand’s definition of truth and then you say “in essence, this is the traditional correspondence theory of truth.” Why do you say “in essence”? Are you implying there is some kind of distinction? |
| 1:15:12 | Is there a difference between an invalid concept and a floating abstraction? |
| 1:17:06 | In your chapter on virtues, do you deal with people who accept the arbitrary? |
| 1:22:02 | Why is it that sometimes you can connect an arbitrary proposition to the rest of human knowledge as a courtesy and sometimes you can’t? |
| 1:42:24 | Can you be thoroughly objective and make an error? |
| 1:44:47 | If it’s true that you can make a mistake, were you really certain at the time you said you were? |
| 1:51:36 | When will the whole book be available? |